The new Wii is called the Wii U. It's coming out in America on November 18 and will cost $299, …
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Many of us had running bets or civil disagreements over our best guesses for the Wii U's launch date and price. It's a good thing I didn't place any bets, because I was certain we'd see $249.99 or $279.99. Clearly, I was very wrong.

And yet, it seemed like a reasonable guess, based on Nintendo's history. So how does the Wii U stack up against the launch prices of its predecessors in the current console generation—or what they cost now? First, let's take a quick look at the consoles.

Perhaps the most noticeable trend across all three current-generation consoles is that as prices have decreased, integrated storage space has increased dramatically, showing off just how important hard drive installations, downloadable content, and digitally-distributed games have become.

Of course, the past seven years have also seen a great deal of change in the handheld market, as mobile devices have become dominant and portable gaming systems have tried to catch up with their set-top brethren. So what of the others? Straight comparisons are more difficult, because handheld device generations are much shorter than set-top console generations. Still, there are numbers to look at.

In 2012, it seems like the $300 price point has become the magic number for electronics to settle on. Almost everything has landed in that sweet spot between $200 and $300, tabletop and handheld alike. The Wii U finds itself solidly in the middle of the pack. It may cost more than a PlayStation 3, but it's cheaper than an iPhone and not any pricier than an Xbox 360.

The question is, will buyers judge it against its current competition from Sony and Microsoft—or against other, historically cheaper, Nintendo products? Other Nintendo consoles have cost $200-$250 at launch. It's all well and good that the Wii U is competitively priced with the consoles that are now, technically, a generation behind it, but that may or may not still help Nintendo when higher-powered Sony and Microsoft consoles inevitably arrive in a year or two.

In context, all modern consoles, Nintendo's included, are as inexpensive as they've ever been. Gamasutra has a nifty chart adjusting console prices for inflation, and every Nintendo console since the Nintendo 64 fits well into the lower end of it—but so, too, do the PlayStation 2 and both Xbox generations. And adjusted for inflation, the humble NES ($200 at launch) would cost $426 in today's money.

Perhaps where today's price announcement surprised so many was that the Wii U has now crossed a line into the realm that, until now, Nintendo seemed to have been avoiding: releasing different versions of the product with different price points. While the Wii, after six years, now comes in an array of different colors, the hardware in each is still the same. Likewise, while each version of the Nintendo DS (the original, the DS Lite, the DSi, and the 3DS) has come in an array of different colors, each has been the same machine.

As for those hoping to wait out the launch price and score a deal on a Wii U, well, we might have quite a wait. The Wii made it almost three years before cutting consumers a break. Best to start saving those pennies now.